Altermodern

Altermodern is a term the curator and theorist Nicolas Bourriaud introduced in 2009 to describe art made as a reaction to standardisation and commercialisation under globalisation. The word combines the prefix alter, meaning other, with modern, and is meant to denote a new form of the contemporary that succeeds postmodernism, which Bourriaud regarded as exhausted as an explanatory model. Bourriaud unveiled the concept in connection with the triennial he curated at Tate Britain in London in 2009. By his definition the altermodern artist is a kind of traveller and translator of cultures, a nomad moving freely between geographies, eras and media, creating within a network of global connections. Such art is marked by creolisation, multilingualism, the use of hyperlinks and journey as a creative principle. Time within it is conceived not linearly but as a navigable space. Although the term did not take hold as widely as Bourriaud's earlier notions such as relational aesthetics, it reflected an attempt to make sense of artistic creation in an age of global interconnection.